Massive production errors cause fear of high graphics card prices

The production of the Taiwanese component manufacturer TSMC has been a serious mistake. Tens of thousands of graphics chips must be scrapped, it says.

If you are planning on investing in one of Nvidia’s latest RTX graphics cards, you should not expect price drops provisionally. Errors can be that there are price increases in sight.

This happens after reports that the Taiwanese component manufacturer, TSMC, which manufactures Nvidia’s chips, are experiencing ‘brutal production defects’.

According to the media PCGames , which refers to Taiwanese sources, TSMC has been forced to discard tens of thousands of chips in their ‘Fab 14’ factory, which, among other things, manufactures Nvidia’s latest graphics chips

Other components for Chinese MediaTek and HiSilicon producing mobile CPUs are also affected.

The production defect is believed to originate from impurities that have crept into the chemicals used in TSMC’s 12nm and 16nm printing processes.

In the summer of 2018, TSMC experienced a larger loss of over half a billion kroner, when a virus attack caused a collapse in production that lasted almost half a day.

After the operational disturbances, TSMC had to discard thousands of chips, this time the production error could cause a loss which is a magnitude greater, it says.

The extent of the damage cannot be determined yet, as further tests must determine the extent of the error.

According to the first estimates, there will be “tens of thousands of chips” to be scrapped.